Only a few more hours left of 2006.  Hope everyone partying out there has a fun, safe time (don't party like Teddy Kennedy!).

My New Year's resolution is, naturally, to renew my eternal struggle against the forces of liberalism.

If anyone's still looking for something to do, SciFi Channel is running a classic Twilight Zone marathon.  Good stuff.



Happy 2007, folks!

Saddam Hussein is dead.  I wonder how he took the realization that he won't be getting his 70 virgins.

The Vatican has condemned the killing:

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The execution is "tragic and reason for sadness," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said, speaking in French on Vatican Radio's French-language news program.

In separate comments to the station's English program, Lombardi said that capital punishment cannot be justified "even when the person put to death is one guilty of grave crimes," and he reiterated the Catholic Church's overall opposition to the death penalty.

Executing Saddam "is not a way to reconstruct justice" in Iraqi society, the spokesman said. "It might fuel the spirit of revenge and sow seeds of new violence."

---

I understand the Catholic Church's opposition to capital punishment.  I have conflicting feelings on the issue myself.  But does anyone find it just a bit unseemly that the Church sees fit to use this particular occasion - the death of a genocidal dictator in the midst of a war - to make its point?

The other night I heard a snippet of Alan Colmes questioning whether Saddam's execution was a wise move.  Hasn't one of the Left's chief complaints all this time been America imposing its will on foreign cultures?  Well, Saddam was tried, convicted, and killed by the Iraqi people.  Their country, their decisions.  Yet now apparently we're supposed to flip-flop.  Nice.  

 Outgoing WI Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager confirms what we’ve been saying all along:

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In one of her last official acts, outgoing Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager has declared that Wisconsin's recently enacted constitutional ban on same-sex marriage does not prohibit public or private employers from providing domestic partner benefits.

In a six-page opinion released Wednesday, Lautenschlager also told Madison City Attorney Michael May that the constitutional amendment does not strike down anti-discrimination protections for domestic partners.

Lautenschlager wrote that "it can reasonably be inferred" from the language of the amendment "that neither the Legislature nor the people intended to invalidate domestic partnerships when they adopted this provision."

Lautenschlager said today that while opinions from the attorney general are advisory, they carry weight in legal documents and in court.

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(hat tip: www.bootsandsabers.com)

This sounds pretty good to me:

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CNSNews.com) - Wisconsin's Democratic governor should reimburse victims of recent armed robberies in the state because its citizens are not permitted to carry concealed weapons and protect themselves when confronted by criminals, a gun rights group said.

It's "time for politicians to pay the price for their decisions," said Joe Waldron, executive director of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA), pointing to Gov. Jim Doyle's opposition to concealed carry laws.

Both Doyle and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D), who supports the governor's stance, should "open their wallets," Waldron told Cybercast News Service.

"If they personally feel so strongly that citizens should not be allowed to defend themselves, then they should bear the costs of that disarming of the citizens."

The gun rights group's communications director, Dave Workman, said state lawmakers had twice tried "to adopt a concealed carry statute which would be legal under their constitutional right to keep and bear arms, and both times Gov. Doyle has vetoed the legislation with the full support of Mayor Barrett."

Workman argued that concealed carry laws have the effect bringing down violent crime rates "because the bad guys never know if their next intended victim might be able to fight back."

"There is a certain deterrent factor involved here," he said.

On the other hand, "when you highly publicize the fact that you have vetoed legislation to prevent honest citizens from arming themselves, what you essentially do is tell the criminals you are creating a risk-free environment for the guys to do whatever they want," he told Cybercast News Service.

"What that indicates to us is that neither of these gentlemen believes very strongly in the right of self defense," Workman added. "So if they're going to allow their citizens to be robbed, somebody should be held responsible financially for their losses."

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Absolutely.  I thought liberals were sensitive to the human impact of political decisions.  Apparently not:

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Peter Hamm, communications director for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, called the proposal "stupid."

"It think it's only fair if Wisconsin decides to do that, that all the gun owners in Wisconsin who have ever had an accident involving their firearm should reimburse the health-care system for the costs of the gun violence that results from accidents," he quipped.

"I'm making fun of their proposal because I think it's a really, really stupid idea," Hamm told Cybercast News Service.

"There are laws on the books that restrain people from carrying concealed firearms because the public policy benefits outweigh the possible costs of the extremely rare times when having a concealed weapon prevents somebody from being injured," he said.

"Concealed weapons more likely cause more injuries than they prevent."

---

Uhh...gun owners already do pay for accidents if they're found liable.  In fact, if they're criminally negligent (or worse), they even go to jail.  For how many decades was Mr. Hamm living under a rock?

And unsuprisingly, he's wrong about the effects of concealed weapons, too.  As Mark W. Smith points out in Disrobed: The New Battle Plan to Break the Left’s Stranglehold on the Courts:

- After interviewing 1,874 inprisoned felons in 1982-83, James Wright & Peter Rossi found that 81% agreed smart criminals consider whether a potential victim has a gun before attacking, 74% that they avoid occupied homes known to contain arms, and 57% fear being shot by citizens more than by police.

- In a study of crime data for every US county over 16 years, John Lott Jr. & David Mustard (University of Chicago) found counties w/ more restrictions on gun ownership to have considerably higher crime rates than those with fewer.  Furthermore, "When state concealed handgun laws went into effect in a county, murders fell by 8.5 percent, and rapes and aggravated assaults fell by 5 and 7 percent."

- 1987: Flordia legalizes the carrying of concealed weapons in public.  The result?  During the first 5 years, the homicide rate fell by 23%, while the national rate rose by 9%.

- 2001: In a national survey of America's police chiefs & sheriffs, 62% believed a "national concealed handgun permit would reduce rates of violent crime."

(hat tip: An Ol’ Broad’s Ramblings)

Looks like the Kansas abortionist probably won’t face charges for his conduct:

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Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline spent more than two years investigating a nationally known abortion provider, but he'll likely leave office next month with little to show for it.

A judge has refused to reinstate the 30 criminal charges Kline filed against Dr. George Tiller, and Kline's successor said Thursday that he won't keep the special prosecutor Kline appointed on the case.

Democrat Paul Morrison, who defeated Kline in November and takes office as attorney general Jan. 8, did not completely rule out an investigation into Tiller.

But he told The Associated Press that any investigation won't involve Kline's special prosecutor. Kline had named Wichita attorney Don McKinney on Wednesday, saying having him as a special prosecutor would keep politics out of the investigation. But McKinney, who had campaigned for Kline, is viewed as a strong anti-abortion activist.

"He is extraordinarily political and, in my opinion, would absolutely not present any kind of independent perspective," Morrison said Thursday.

A Kline spokesman said the attorney general was unavailable Thursday morning for comment.

McKinney declined to respond in a statement, but added the state has enacted laws "to protect babies that are about to be born" and that "those laws need to be enforced and not winked at."

Kline had waged a successful two-year legal battle to get patient records from Tiller and other abortion providers. He filed charges against Tiller on Dec. 21, accusing the doctor of illegally using the mental health concerns of patients to justify late-term abortions and of failing to properly report procedures to the state.

Sedgwick County District Judge Paul W. Clark dismissed the charges on Dec. 22, citing a jurisdiction problem, and then refused this week to reinstate them.

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I know how we could solve all these legal side battles about what to report, fetal viability, minors across state lines, etc., in one move: simply take the human course of action and institute a nationwide ban on the deliberate killing of defenseless children.

It's official: Sen. John Edwards is running for president again.  Remember, "Hope is on the way!"

Yawn.

No good soldier enters battle without the proper preparation. The war of words that is American politics is no different. Fortunately, there’s an abundance of conservative reading material for every domestic battlefield. No conservative’s library should be without these gems (for many more, check out Conservative Book Club & the American Compass, and further suggestions in the comments are more than welcome—this is but a tiny slice of the wealth of conservative wisdom out there!).

Basic Conservative Principles

These articulate general conservative beliefs and are great introductory books for newcomers to the political scene.

- The Way Things Ought to Be by Rush Limbaugh—Though framed by the issues of 1993, the talk radio king’s first book is still a classic. Individual liberty, taxes, Reagan, multiculturalism, crime, environmentalism, and more—Rush tackles it all effectively and accessibly.

- Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism by Sean Hannity—A post-9/11 conservative manifesto, Hannity makes a passionate case for a proactive War on Terror, the right to life, school choice, ANWR drilling, & other top issues. Young, aspiring conservatives will probably get the most out of it.

- The Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy: the Arguments You Need to Defeat the Loony Left (2006 Edition) by Mark W. Smith—Smith offers fairly quick, point-by-point rebuttals to liberal talking points on just about every issue under the sun. Also recommended for newbies.

- How to Talk to a Liberal (if You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter—A collection of the right-wing icon’s columns on a wide range of issues, this one’s sure to make you laugh, cry and think.

- Godless: the Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter—This blockbuster skewers liberalism in classic Coulter style. In Godless, Coulter goes a step further and answers why liberals stubbornly cling to their left-wing fallacies: because liberalism is a man-made religion, driven by faith rather than reason.

- What’s So Great About America by Dinesh D’Souza—A compelling defense of America’s noble history & the American Dream from an immigrant’s perspective. Especially useful on college campuses & other hotbeds of anti-Americanism.

- Ain’t No Rag: Freedom, Family & the Flag by Charlie Daniels—A collection of soapbox columns from the country legend’s official website, Ain’t No Rag contains plainspoken yet heartfelt takes on the titular values, politics & culture, and some nonpartisan columns that highlight the magic of America.

- Mere Christianity by CS Lewis—OK, so this one technically isn’t a political book. But as perhaps the finest argument for God’s existence and Christian principles ever written, this masterwork is an absolute must-read.

War on Terror & Islamofascism

From rogue nations & terrorist operatives to cultural tension between Islam & the West, these tomes can prepare anyone for the battle for America’s survival.

- Why We Fight: Moral Clarity & the War on Terrorism by Bill Bennett—An invaluable book about the basic goodness of our nation, the inherent evil of our enemies, and the strength & vision needed to recognize both and fight accordingly.

- Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First by Mona Charen—From the Left’s naiveté (at best) about Communism to their weak knees in the face of Islamofascism, Useful Idiots is a stinging indictment of today’s useful idiots. As is…

- Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter—Another essential review of the Left’s abysmal track record on national security, Treason is especially valuable for its unapologetic defense of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, & reminder that yes, Virginia, there were Soviet spies in the US government.

- An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror by David Frum & Richard Perle—A thoughtful & thorough work on homeland security, the Iraq War, our global allies & enemies, and why we need the courage to do what’s right, regardless of foreign opinion.

- The Connection: How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America by Stephen Hayes—Iraq is a distraction from the War on Terror? Think again. Saddam was linked to international terrorists, and here’s the proof.

- Disinformation: 22 Media Myths That Undermine the War on Terror by Richard Miniter—Objective investigations into numerous myths, with conclusions sure to startle anyone who only hears the mainstream media: Saddam did not comply with UN inspectors & did have some WMDs, Iraq was tied to terrorism, most terrorists aren’t impoverished, and more.

- War Stories: Operation Iraqi Freedom by Oliver North—Lt. Col. North served his country in Vietnam, in the Reagan Administration, and now as an embedded journalist for Fox News Channel. To this day he spends a great deal of time with the troops in Iraq, and in War Stories, he offers his firsthand experience. Includes a 50-minute DVD.

- Reckless Disregard: How Liberal Democrats Undercut Our Military, Endanger Our Soldiers, and Jeopardize Our Security by Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz” Patterson—He carried the “nuclear football” in the Clinton White House, and now he’s fighting back against his old boss’ party. His message? Liberalism just doesn’t mix with military issues & national security.

- The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) by Robert Spencer—A hard-hitting history of Islam & study of its relation to violence by a leading scholar on the religion.

The Constitution & Judiciary

One of politics’ most vital battlefields is that of the law & who interprets it. Fidelity to the original intent of the Constitution is central to conservatism & essential to America.

- The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, & John Jay—What better authority on the Constitution can there be than the Framers themselves?

- The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, edited by Edwin Meese—Over 100 conservative legal scholars have joined with the Heritage Foundation to create this clause-by-clause study of the Constitution in an effort to determine the Founding Fathers’ original intent behind every word.

- The Supreme Court (Revised and Updated) by William H. Rehnquist—The late Chief Justice wrote this insightful history of the high court to be accessible to non-legal scholars.

- Men in Black: How the Supreme Court Is Destroying America by Mark R. Levin—Don’t let his rambunctious radio style fool you—“the Great One” Mark Levin is a serious legal mind, as he proves with the excellent Men in Black, which pulls no punches in his sharp review of legal history & current controversies.

History

“Those who fail to heed history’s mistakes are doomed to repeat them.” So are those whose education has been tainted by propagandists & political correctness. Here are some remedies.

- 1776 by David McCullough—The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian offers this gripping history of the Americans & British who fought the Revolutionary War during this monumental year.

- The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History by Thomas E. Woods—Think you know US history? Think again. The first entry in the Politically Incorrect Guide series blows the lid off scores of falsehoods behind conventional historic wisdom.

- The American Revolution: First-Person Accounts by the Men Who Shaped Our Nation, edited by TJ Stiles—A revealing collection of essays, letters, & diary entries by Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Washington, Paine, and other leaders of the Revolutionary era.

- Back to Basics for the Republican Party by Michael Zak—A history of the GOP which reveals its courageous abolitionist roots and calls for its return to such boldness & principle.

- Under God by Toby Mac & Michael Tait—A collection of anecdotes throughout America’s history from Americans famous & unknown that illustrate how faith in God guided us through our most trying times.

- America’s God and Country Encyclopedia of Quotations by William J. Federer—A massive collection of quotes from many, many people throughout America’s history, on God, America, & principle.

- The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America by Roger Kimball—A devastating review of the counterculture movement and how it was born & took root among the societal elite.

- War Stories II: Heroism in the Pacific & War Stories III: The Heroes Who Defeated Hitler by Lt. Col. Oliver North—These two books tell the tale of the battle for civilization that was World War II, and each includes a DVD full of further material.

Media Bias & Liberal Propaganda

The press may be free, but it’s by no means independent or reliable. The following help sort through the spin.

- Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter—A phenomenal expose about left-wing domination of the media and propaganda techniques by which liberals attempt to control & frame national debate.

- Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News & Arrogance: Rescuing America from the Media Elite by Bernard Goldberg—The veteran reporter blows the whistle on his old coworkers, challenging the mainstream media’s decline in reliability head-on.

- Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel—Why Everything You Know Is Wrong by John Stossel—ABC’s ace reporter takes aim at a shovelful of falsehoods the media either blindly parrots or knowingly promotes.

Domestic Issues

Here are invaluable volumes on the major issues of the day.

- The Party of Death: The Democrats, the Media, the Courts, and the Disregard for Human Life by Ramesh Ponnuru—Mr. Ponnuru offers a compelling examination of abortion, and the damage its advocates have done to American ethics & culture.

- Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores by Michelle Malkin—A strong and scary indictment of the governments’ dysfunctional, derelict, & disastrous immigration policies.

- Persecution: How Liberals Are Waging War Against Christianity by David Limbaugh—Under the guise of tolerance, the Left is actively trying to expunge America’s religious heritage, stifle religious expression, and implant in us a secular national identity. Fortunately, David Limbaugh has fought back with Persecution.

- Guns, Crime, and Freedom by Wayne LaPierre—An unapologetic defense of our constitutional right to bear arms & challenge to liberal demagoguery on gun issues.

- Basic Economics: A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy (Revised & Expanded) by Thomas Sowell—Think of it as an introductory course on economics & public policy, courtesy of a leading conservative scholar & economist.

- Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study by Thomas Sowell—This book studies the consequences of affirmative action policies in America, Nigeria, India, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka.

- The Homosexual Agenda: Exposing the Principal Threat to Religious Freedom Today by Alan Sears & Craig Osten—Sears & Osten fearlessly challenge the influence of homosexual conduct on American culture.

- The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America by David Horowitz—By profiling 101 radical leftists in high, respected academic posts, Horowitz exposes just how much is wrong with higher education today.

- The Marketing of Evil: How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised as Freedom by David Kupelian—From filth in entertainment to fallacies in education, this is a bold challenge to the secular forces seducing American culture.

- Mexifornia: A State of Becoming by Victor Davis Hanson—Using situations in California as primary examples, Mexifornia tackles the alliance of corporate interests, bleeding-heart bureaucrats, and La Raza separatists that derails any attempt to secure our borders & reform our immigration system.

Gerald Ford has died at the age of 93.




"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

"I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, so I ask you to confirm me with your prayers."

" Our constitution works. Our great republic is a government of laws, not of men."

Remember Newsweek's cover story about Barack Obama bringing Red & Blue together into a "Purple America?"  Isn't the good Senator a moderate committed to unity?

Um, no.

Turns out that, on the biggest question of simple decency facing America, Obama is even further to the Left, even more anti-humanitarian, than NARAL:

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In 2002, as an Illinois legislator, Obama voted against the Induced Infant Liability Act, which would have protected babies that survived late-term abortions. That same year a similar federal law, the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, was signed by President Bush. Only 15 members of the U.S. House opposed it, and it passed the Senate unanimously on a voice vote.

Both the Illinois and the federal bill sought equal treatment for babies who survived premature inducement for the purpose of abortion and wanted babies who were born prematurely and given live-saving medical attention.

When the federal bill was being debated, NARAL Pro-Choice America released a statement that said, “Consistent with our position last year, NARAL does not oppose passage of the Born Alive Infants Protection Act ... floor debate served to clarify the bill’s intent and assure us that it is not targeted at Roe v. Wade or a woman’s right to choose.”

But Obama voted against this bill in the Illinois senate and killed it in committee. Twice, the Induced Infant Liability Act came up in the Judiciary Committee on which he served. At its first reading he voted “present.” At the second he voted “no.”

[...]

Jill Stanek, a registered delivery-ward nurse who was the prime mover behind the legislation after she witnessed aborted babies’ being born alive and left to die, testified twice before Obama in support of the Induced Infant Liability Act bills. She also testified before the U.S. Congress in support of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

Stanek told me her testimony “did not faze” Obama.

In the second hearing, Stanek said, “I brought pictures in and presented them to the committee of very premature babies from my neonatal resuscitation book from the American Pediatric Association, trying to show them unwanted babies were being cast aside. Babies the same age were being treated if they were wanted!”

“And those pictures didn’t faze him [Obama] at all,” she said.

At the end of the hearing, according to the official records of the Illinois State senate, Obama thanked Stanek for being “very clear and forthright,” but said his concern was that Stanek had suggested “doctors really don’t care about children who are being born with a reasonable prospect of life because they are so locked into their pro-abortion views that they would watch an infant that is viable die.” He told her, “That may be your assessment, and I don’t see any evidence of that. What we are doing here is to create one more burden on a woman and I can’t support that.”

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Chilling.

 

A politically-incorrect challenge to Mary Cheney & gay adoption, courtesy of the American Thinker:

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Is Gay Adoption a Benign Reality?

Dec. 21, 2006

By George Neumayr

Deliberately bringing a child into the world without a father and exposing that child's moral formation to an atmosphere of homosexuality is a "benign reality," according to Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post. Marcus was writing in praise of "Mary Cheney's pregnancy," only regretting that it hadn't occurred during the 2004 election cycle, when a "hugely pregnant" Cheney could have

"illustrated the clanging disconnect between the Republican Party's outmoded intolerance and the benign reality of gay families today."

Unfortunately, the Republican Party isn't as reactionary as Marcus supposes. Hasn't she noticed that it is happy to make mindless concessions to social liberals like her? After all, George Bush evidently considers gay adoption a benign reality too. Quickly crying uncle to his glib questioners at People magazine, he predicted Mary Cheney will be a very good mother and "loving soul" to her child.

Bush's interest in the domestic culture war at this point is almost nil and his handling of it is certainly as questionable as his conduct of the Iraqi one. The rhetoric grows more and more depressingly empty: White House spokesmen rattle on about the danger foreign radicals pose to our "way of life" even as they watch, with fashionable passivity, domestic liberals damage it. Is there nobody at the White House who can bring themselves to say that gay adoption is bad for children?

What Bush calls a "loving" arrangement, morally serious conservatives used to call a form of child abuse. Cruelly placing children, sans fathers or mothers, into homosexual households is just one more sham moral innovation Republicans are content to soft-pedal.

What passes for moral enlightenment among the establishment is stunning. Did anybody notice that the impeccably enlightened Post-after assuring benighted Americans that gay adoption is not corrupting but positively good for children-ran a piece recently rationalizing pederasty? That, according to its Style Section, is a benign reality too. Staff writer Philip Kennicott broached the topic of "sex between adults and teens" in an essay titled "The Instructive Message of 'History Boys'".

According to Kennicott, the "e-mails and instant messages that then-Rep. Mark Foley sent to teenage male pages should have been a very minor story," compared to far more weighty issues such as imploding Iraq, "memories" of Hurricane Katrina or "stem cell research." Similarly, the pederasty-or as he hedgingly puts it, "minor sexual contact between a teacher and his students"-in Alan Bennett's play and new movie, The History Boys, is a mere "subplot" to which hysterically puritanical Americans are sure to overreact.

A "climate of fear about adolescent sexuality" exists in America, sighs Kennicott, and Americans just aren't as sophisticated as the British when it comes to pederasty: Bennett's play could not be "written in the United States during the age of programs such as NBC's 'To Catch a Predator' or fallout from the Foley scandal." (Kennicott calls "To Catch a Predator" a "scabrous program" that fails to appreciate the "larger continuum of the sexual interactions between adults and youth suggested by Bennett's play.")

Kennicott quotes Nick Hytner, the director of the film, on the harmlessness of teacher-teen sex:

"I think I've been criticized for not taking this seriously enough. I'm afraid I don't take that very seriously if they're 17 or 18. I think they are actually much wiser than Hector [The teacher who molests his students]. Hector is the child, not them."

Dressing up crude relativism as high-brow nuance, Kennicott laments that

"that acceptance of a gray area about sexuality involving late adolescents is all but impossible in this country,"

a country in which there exists a

"vigilance so strict that there is no room for exceptions of any sort, even if the abused are all-but adults and don't feel particularly victimized."

Even if the abused are all-but adults and don't feel particularly victimized. It is hard to imagine the Post running a sympathetic article about a teacher who gives willing students, say, cigarettes or even potato chips. But a movie about a teacher who gropes his male students? That is worthy of a Post Style Section essay on its "instructive message."

And what exactly is that instructive message? Distilled to its essence, the message is that if teens consent to their own corruption, if they accept pederasty in a spirit of empathy, then it is morally acceptable. Amidst all of his throat-clearing hedges, Kennicott even in passing suggests that teens are not always victims of gravely immoral adults but "prematurely sophisticated" seducers of them. He praises the teen characters in Bennett's movie as "preternaturally wise" for good-humoredly indulging their "flawed teacher's sexual desires." The students recognize their teacher as a type that is "often harmless" and show him an empathy befitting their status as "intellectually sophisticated" and "rarefied" members of posh British society.

"Their ability to negotiate, with grace and understanding, what would in almost every other context be considered sexual abuse is very much limited to the particulars of their social position...," writes Kennicott.

The establishment reads a piece like this and either yawns or applauds. It is perfectly willing to let the "gray areas" of which Kennicott speaks grow larger and larger to cover behavior formerly considered evil. The moral program of the establishment largely consists of mistreating children and calling it "progress."

But do children consider this progress? Some can be brainwashed into consenting to the arrangement, and certainly the establishment expends a lot of energy on the task, pressuring children to adopt all the properly positive attitudes about such issues as abortion, gay adoption, and in vitro fertilization. Yet as its various moral experiments percolate and bubble over, a few voices of dissent can be heard.

To somebody's credit over at the Post, a disgruntled child of artificial insemination was allowed to pipe up last Sunday and blurt out the obvious in the Outlook section: that the whole arrangement reflects deep selfishness on the part of adults and callous indifference to the welfare of children. "As long as these adults are happy, then donor conception is a success, right?" writes Katrina Clark.

"Not so. The children born of these transactions are people too...and we have something to say...We didn't ask to be born into this situation, with its limitations and confusion."

Clark notes the hypocrisy of adults craving a biological relationship to the point where they resort to technology while assuming that the "product" of these methods-children-don't themselves need biological roots:

"We offspring are recognizing the right that was stripped from us at birth-the right to know who both our parents are."

Being conceived under unnatural circumstances has made her in a sense a "freak," she says and wonders why self-indulgent adults don't consider the consequences of intentionally depriving children of their fathers:

"When I read some of the mothers' thoughts about their choice for conception, it made me feel degraded to nothing more than a vial of frozen sperm. It seemed to me that most of the mothers and donors give little thought to the feelings of the children who would result from their actions."

Now the establishment adds on top of these anomalies one more-gay adoption via technology. Imagine what this new class of semi-orphans, essentially created to serve as an accessory to gay life, will feel about the circumstances of their birth. Will they consider it a "benign reality"?

George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report.

One of the most outrageous stories in a long time:

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In February 2005, the agents tried to stop a van driven by drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila near the Mexico border. After a scuffle with Compean, Aldrete-Davila fled on foot. Ramos says he believes that he saw a gun -- which the smuggler denies. Both agents fired at Aldrete-Davila, who fell, then continued his escape across the border. After he got away, Ramos and Compean filed a report on the 743 pounds of marijuana they found in the van, but not on the gunfire. As it turns out, Ramos had shot Aldrete-Davila in the butt. A Homeland Security agent heard about the episode, went to Mexico and offered Aldrete-Davila immunity, if he testified against Ramos and Compean.

U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, a Bush appointee, prosecuted the agents. In March, a jury found them guilty of assault with a dangerous weapon, discharge of a firearm during a violent crime, obstructing justice, lying about the incident and willfully violating Aldrete-Davila's Fourth Amendment right to be free from illegal seizure.

Because there was gunfire, the mandatory-minimum prison sentence the agents will serve is 10 years. The U.S. Probation Office in El Paso, Texas, has recommended 20 years -- 20 years away from their wives and their children, and among the type of people they've put behind bars.

As for Aldrete-Davila, he faces no charges for the 743 pounds of pot. That leaves him free to carry out his plan to sue the Border Patrol -- that is, U.S. taxpayers -- for $5 million because his civil rights were violated.

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Mr. President, there is NO REASON WHATSOEVER for these honorable men to go to jail.  They were doing the job you refuse to: defending our border.  If they made some procedural mistakes, the border patrol ought to have adequate disciplinary measures outside the scope of the criminal justice system.  Allowing them to go to prison for this is inexcusable.

Mr. President, this is your time for choosing.  You can do the decent, human, American thing and pardon these men.  If not, you will be spitting on the trust millions of Americans place in you, to say nothing of the patience & forgiveness of all the conservatives you've let down.

The choice is yours.

Last night Bill O'Reilly gave one of his best performances in a while when "Professor" Kevin Barret came on the Factor.  He made it clear Barrett's claims weren't to be taken seriously, and made an example of the rot that's taken place in the University of Wisconsin system (no video yet, but I'm keeping an eye out).

As if that wasn't enough, Danny Bonaduce (!) mopped the floor with a "9/11 Truth" thug.  It's always nice to see a celebrity say something good for a change.  Way to go!

UPDATE: Here's the Bill vs. Barrett video.

 Not a great day to be an amnesty proponent:

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December 15, 2006

The latest project of Wildstorm (a division of DC Comics) is Red Menace, a comic-book miniseries about a 1950s-era superhero called the Eagle, who despite his heartfelt patriotism is smeared as a Communist by the ultimate boogeyman of liberal mythology: Joe McCarthy.



For one thing, look at the ridiculous eyes on that mask; how could the Eagle not be a Commie?!

Seriously, though, what a joke.  The revisionist history about the Cold War has got to stop.  Ann Coulter did a great job fighting it with Treason, and hopefully Stan Evans' upcoming book Blacklisted by History will continue the good fight (and it better - I see on Amazon that its release date has been bumped to 2009!)

 

Christopher Hitchens’ aforementioned Weekly Standard column “God of Our Fathers” (a review of Brooke Allen’s Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers) attempts to make the case that America’s Founding Fathers were not religious and wanted to “insulate faith from politics.” Below is my dissection of the piece (Hitchens' words are in red):

Why should we care what the Founding Fathers believed, or did not believe, about religion? They went to such great trouble to insulate faith from politics, and took such care to keep their own convictions private, that it would scarcely matter if it could now be proved that, say, George Washington was a secret Baptist.

“Insulate faith from politics”? Not exactly. In his Farewell Address, President Washington articulated a belief echoed by all the Framers:

“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness, these firmness props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”

The ancestor of the American Revolution was the English Revolution of the 1640s, whose leaders and spokesmen were certainly Protestant fundamentalists, but that did not bind the Framers and cannot be said to bind us, either. Indeed, the established Protestant church in Britain was one of the models which we can be quite sure the signatories of 1776 were determined to avoid emulating.

Correct, but nobody disputes this. As we will see below, Hitchens likes to employ a bait-&-switch on the reader: using the concept of an official state church interchangeably with that of religion itself, and using the Framers’ disdain for the former to claim they also disdained the latter, which was hardly the case.

Moreover, the 18th-century scholars and gentlemen who gave us the U.S. Constitution were in a relative state of innocence respecting knowledge of the cosmos, the earth, and the psyche, of the sort that has revolutionized the modern argument over faith. Charles Darwin was born in Thomas Jefferson's lifetime (on the very same day as Abraham Lincoln, as it happens), but Jefferson's guesses about the fossils found in Virginia were to Darwinism what alchemy is to chemistry. And the insights of Einstein and Freud lay over a still more distant horizon.

If the intended implication is that scientific knowledge & religious belief are incompatible, it’s false. Radio host Dennis Prager recently had an excellent debate with leading atheist Sam Harris on the matter (and no, Prager is not a bigot), and theological philosopher Peter Kreeft has many fabulous logic-based cases for God.

The furthest that most skeptics could go was in the direction of an indeterminate deism, which accepted that the natural order seemed to require a designer but did not necessitate the belief that the said designer actually intervened in human affairs.

That’s odd, because the real-life Framers went a good deal farther than that:

John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 4/19/1817: “Without religion, the world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company.”

Ben Franklin, in a letter to Joseph Huey, 6/6/1753: “Even the mixed, imperfect pleasures we enjoy in this world, are rather from God’s goodness than our merit.” To the Constitutional Convention, 6/28/1787: “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God Governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”

Patrick Henry, to the 2^nd Virginia Convention, 3/23/1775: “Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power…Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations; and who will raise up friends to fight our battle for us.”

Thomas Jefferson, in Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781: “Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath?”

You get the idea. And there’s plenty more where that came from.

Invocations such as "nature's god" were partly intended to hedge this bet, while avoiding giving offense to the pious. Even Thomas Paine, the most explicitly anti-Christian of the lot, wrote The Age of Reason as a defense of god from those who traduced him in man-made screeds like the Bible.

Our forefathers’ religious rhetoric was little more than window dressing they didn’t really believe? Considering that many of their most explicitly religious words come from their personal diaries & private correspondences, I have trouble believing Hitchens makes an honest mistake here. Now, Paine is an interesting case. Steve Farrell wrote three articles (#1, #2, and #3) exploring his faith. The main points: The Age of Reason earned him nothing but disagreement (at best) and disgrace from his countrymen. Moreover, Paine himself came to reject it: “I would give worlds, if I had them, if The Age of Reason had never been published. O Lord, help! Stay with me! It is hell to be left alone.”

Considering these limitations, it is quite astonishing how irreligious the Founders actually were. You might not easily guess, for example, who was the author of the following words:

Oh! Lord! Do you think that a Protestant Popedom is annihilated in America? Do you recollect, or have you ever attended to the ecclesiastical Strifes in Maryland Pensilvania [sic], New York, and every part of New England? What a mercy it is that these People cannot whip and crop, and pillory and roast, as yet in the U.S.! If they could they would. . . . There is a germ of religion in human nature so strong that whenever a